Dawn Voyager, Mission Fourteen: Star Horizon
9/23/3030 Jack Yorke woke up on an operating table. Confused and disoriented, he wildly looks around the room to try and get his bearings. "Tumulus Memorial Hospital on Bliss," a familiar voice says next to him. "Lloyd. What the hell..?" "Your last two missions took you to places that had some... issues... with slip-space," his employer says, walking into his line of vision, "You and your crew were having some sanity issues. So I knocked you out and used my abilities to perform noninvasive neurosurgery." Lloyd punctuates his sentence by shape-shifting his hands into a pair of scalpels. "You've lost a good month or so." "A month?" "A month." "And what have we been doing that past month?" "Raiding a Terra Prima base to get the clear Key, which you got, and then raiding another Terra Prima base to capture Imran Banks, the current leader of the faction." "Were we successful?" "Aye. You found him. Stefan was pretty pissed and shot his dick off. Understandable, since the report states you walked in on him bangin' Cassi. Best not to mention this to the rest of the crew." "... yeah. That's one memory I think Stefan could do without." "Moving on... much as I'd like to give you a recovery period, something's come up." "As it always does. Don't you have other crews?" "While my throwing you back in danger is usually just me being an ass, I've also added some resilience to Slip-Space in you and your crew. And you're going to need it for this one." "What's the job?" "The Star Horizon has reappeared. Right about here," Lloyd replies, pointing at a map of the galaxy. "The Star Horizon was lost in Slip-Space, though. How'd it get back and why is it inside the Galactic Void?" "That's what I'm sending you to find out. The rest of your crew should wake up in a few hours; I suggest you leave within the day. If this is what I think it is, I need to know as soon as possible." ---- "Yo-aw-?" A dull voice went through her head as her eyes cracked open revealing a black figure standing above her. In her moment of shock, she tried forcing her arm to grip the figure only to feel it stop short before her hearing came back fully. "Woah, calm down there, Hulk!" It was Yorke's voice as the figure was forcing her arm down before the color and exact features of the male started to come into place. "Jesus, Lloyd should have warned me not to try and wake any of you up." Putting one of her palms on her forehead, Oeh-Wje lifted herself up and looked at her captain, "Where are we? And more importantly why aren't we getting the key?" Yorke took a moment to explain the situation, the mission, the month-long coma and the bit about Stefan trying to make sure she fully understood the circumstances. Before moving onto the mission and how they were going to be dealing with a couple of insane former BCA employees. "And you woke up everyone else too? Can't think about leaving them all behind, we could do without some, but they might make a decent defense for the ship while we venture off into that spacer's trap." "You were the only one left that I had to get. Stood here for a few minutes just waiting in that chair before you tried to crush my skull." "You should know better than trying to wake up a sleeping alien that can break your tiny bones. Not even taking into account the last thing I remember." "No bad there, but you were less bad than Basta. I think I had to stay there for a solid 30 minutes before I went off to get the others. When I found her she was still knocked out for about another solid 15 minutes, kept mumbling in her sleep the whole time before she woke up. Was still freaked out that she was captured." Oeh-Wje chuckled, "Yeah, she's a nervous one. Any idea on how we're going to be splitting up for the mission?" "Me, you, Roar-Ree and Har-Bak are heading off into the Star Horizon. BOB, Basta and Stefan will be back on the ship making sure none of them get past us and try to hijack our ship while we're gone, can't afford to have a couple of slip spacers running off to the nearest port." Oeh-Wje nodded as Yorke lifted himself up and began to leave the room. Dawn Voyager Section Stefan stretched a bit and walked to grab his weapons. "Aghh, my head still aches a bit." He touches his forehead and slings his MK around him. "Well it couldn't have been worse Doc," replied BOB from a nearby monitor. "I mean, least you didn't end up in a body bag." "Thanks for the vote of confidence, BOB," said Stefan. "Don' mention it." "Still it's a nice change of pace, could use some R&R." "Want me to make some drinks?" asked Basta as she sat down. "Nah not really-on second thought, yeah I could go for a drink or two," said Stefan. "Hey BOB keep us posted on what's going out there." "Yeah, yeah I will Doc." "Lead the way to the bar Basta." The two walked out of the room and started making their way through the hallway. "Okay, really?" Basta says, looking through the liquor cabinet, "Who the fuck stocked us with Anat'Ara and nothing else?" "That would be Lloyd," BOB-5 says, "His idea of a joke, I guess." "In poor bloody taste, then. I still have nightmares about the last time I drank this stuff." Stefan stares at the bottles for a couple seconds. "I might have an idea... Basta, mind grabbing a few of those bottles and taking them down to the med bay? I might be able to figure out what the hallucinogen is and why it defaults to nightmare fuel." "Why?" "Medical curiosity, for one. And to help Roar-Ree make new weapons, for two. He's been complaining about not having enough power for a while." "Well, as long as I'm not your guinea pig..." "Nah don't worry Basta," replied Stefan. "I won't." "Bahhh don listen to him," replied BOB. "he probably will. So you better watch your back!" Basta looks at Stefan, giving him a bit of an awkward and possibly pissed off expression. "Don't listen to BOB, Basta. We've been through how much already? C'mon you know me! As for you BOB-!" "Oh what are you going to do Doc? Throw some needles, shoot at me? Bahahahahaha!" "Ughh, I really want a drink now...." The two continue to make their way to the medbay as BOB continues to chuckle over them. Stefan is the first to enter the Medbay and starts setting up equipment on a table. "Okay, Basta hand me a bottle." She grabs the bottle and gives weary looks to both the ship and to the doctor, "And how do you plan to do that doc? I thought you were an army doctor, not a chemist." She eyed the equipment as she approached the other end of the table, sliding it to him, which he managed to catch. "I'm with the cat," BOB said through the speakers, "What you gonna do if you figure it out? Make a killing as a drug lord hallucnigen?" Stefan poped the top of the bottle and poured some into a measuring flask, "If I can isolate the nightmare fuel chemical, maybe we can stick it in gas grenades and make the enemies off themselves." Basta was about to counter, but stopped, "That- actually wouldn't be half bad...as long as I'm out of the range. I do not want to get even a whiff of that stuff." "I could shut the ventilation off, record the reactions for the doc." BOB joked, shutting the doors of the med bay. Basta made a rude Altarian gesture towards the security camera, "Knowing my chances, Lloyd would love it too." She went over to one of the medical beds and sat on the end of it crossing her legs as she watched, "Seriously though Stef, that a major jump from 'combat doctor' to 'biochemist'. I used to serve drink to people who thought they knew it all only to come back missing an arm or eye." The AI gave a chuckle, "Sounds like you prefer tending that bar, Cat. We could always drop you off if you want." "God, only way I'd return to..." She paused and thought for a bit, but failing to finish her sentence "Damn...I can't remember the name of that dive. I guess when you tend forget the boring stuff when you have people shooting at you." Stefan didn't look up from his equipment as he worked with the Anat'ara, "Welcome to the life of a soldier Basta, it's only going to get worse. Now, the wonderful thing about working with the BCA is that our lab has a full toxicology suite. I can just toss this inside and it'll separate things into its base components and tell me what it is and if it's known to do anything," he says, "I'm not a biochemist, but I don't need to be with this stuff." "And how will you know what chemical or blend of them causes the hallucinations?" Basta asks, "If it was known what did it, wouldn't someone have made this into a weapon already?" "Another perk of working with the BCA. I can give this to Lloyd, tell him what I'm looking for, and hope he doesn't use it for anything evil." BOB-5's laughter resounds through the intercom speakers. "Stefan, Lloyd doesn't have the same concept of good and evil as you do. Or as any of us do." "... Would he use it for stuff we would consider evil?" "In a heartbeat, if he thought it was justified. Doesn't change the fact that asking him is the quickest way to get your curiosity satisfied." "And since I've already started running the tests, he'll probably have that data anyway." "Doc, Cat, you there?" Har-Bak's voice comes in through the com. "I'll take that," Basta says, and walks out of the room. "Har-Bak, this is Basta, what's happening out there?" asked Basta. "Cat, get the Voyager ready to go!" Har-Bak yelled over the sound of gunfire. "Why what's-" the comm got disconnected. "Dammit!" Basta quickly runs back into the medbay. "Stefan, stop what you're doing! We need to get the Voyager prepped to launch!" Stefan cautiously puts down a vile on the table. "Who called back?" as he quickly grabbed his MK rifle. The two started running out into the hallway. "Har-Bak, seems like they have a lot of heat on them." "Did he say anything else?" "No, the call got disconnected before he said anything else." "Alright then. BOB start prepping the engines and get more of the Voyager's defenses up and running," ordered Stefan. "Way ahead of you Doc," replied BOB from the comms. The engines of the Voyager started giving off a low hum as they began to power up. Exploration Party As Oeh-Wje walked into the cargo hold with the rest of the crew, she looked to see Har-Bak examining her weapon. "It's a nice piece of hardware- not even BOB could worm out some info on it." "Not for lack of trying!" The droid voiced over the ship's loudspeaker. "Damn shame, too- I think I'd like to have one myself." Oeh-Wje laughed- not out of humor, more so of contempt. "When I'm in the pine box, you'll get it in the will." The two Eurypts chuckled as Yorke and Roar-Ree finished prepping their gear. Yorke holstered his revolvers, and yelled in no particular direction. "You gonna keep an eye of the place, BOB?" "Can't same the for the fleshies, but I'll make sure no Spacers gonna be boarding...well, me." BOB said with a chuckle. "Alright then. Stefan, Basta, wish us luck." Roar-Ree smirked. "I don't need luck, I've got ammo." Oeh-Wje chuckled as the squad left the ship. "Well, history says otherwise." The four entered the ship, looking around. The walls had patches of an oily, black substance on them. Curious, Roar-Ree reaches out towards it. "Don't touch that," Lloyd's voice comes through their comms, "It'll do worse than kill you." Roar Ree snatches his had away. "You know what that is?" Yorke says. "I have a hunch, and I sure as hell hope I'm wrong." "And if you're right?" "Then you're fucked." "Shh..." Oeh-Wje says. "Huh?" Har-Bak says, only to be waved to silence. After about thirty seconds, he speaks up again. "I don't hear anything." "That's the problem. Even if the entire crew were somehow transported off the ship, there'd still be some noise. The lights are on; the ship's running. But there's nothing." To demonstrate, Oeh-Wje stomps on the ground. "Not even this makes a sound." "I didn't design the Star Horizon that way," Lloyd says. "For now, keep searching." Roar-Ree sniffed the air and turned to look at Yorke. "I'm not smelling them, Yorke. Like, there's no scent of any of them. I don't like this, for the record." Yorke gave a wary glance around as the crew kept moving through the ship. "Neither do I, so let's get this done." Har-Bak chuckled,"You'd think that after some of the missions we've pulled off, you'd stop complaining." The crew continued walking, with Roar-Ree taking special effort to avoid touching any walls. "So, uh, you guys also wondering what Stefan and Basta are up to?" Oeh-Wje scoffed. "Stay focused, Mutt." Roar-Ree put his hands up defensively. "Uh, yeah. Cool. Good idea." The group walks through the deserted, soundless corridor, trying and failing to make small talk to relieve tension. They then turn a corner and stop short. "Okay, really?" Oeh-Wje says, "This is the most cliche horror trope there is." The hallway splits into four branches ahead of them; one heading up, one down, one left, and one right. "Please tell me you're not thinking of sending us alone down each branch, Yorke." Oeh-Wje turns to her commander, who is checking the floor plan on his tablet. "So here's how it's set up. Going up will take us to the cockpit, down will take us to the engines, left to the mess hall, and right to the crew quarters." "Well, we're going to need to check the whole ship eventually," Har-Bak says, "So how are we going to do this, boss?" "Well, we are not going to run the risk of spilting up here. Seen enough incidents like this before to even toy with that thought." Yorke said as he began looking towards crew quarters, "We're going to head down there first, God willing, we'll find some survivors." "Or what's left of them." Har-Bak quipped as he lifted his weapon and began to follow Yorke who lead the group and held his Peacekeeper forward. "And even if any of them did survive the initial onslaught, then we might be able to find some audio logs. Did Lloyd even say what their mission was?" "Can't remember anything that sticks out about these guys, minus the crew leader. Met him on day I was hired. Just some average guy looking to make a buck as far as I knew, but considering he caught Lloyd's eye, I'm going with the idea that he was skilled enough to get into BCA." Yorke continued along the hall way till he noticed several drops of what appeared to be the black liquid, a couple paces away from each other until a massive blotch of the liquid ended the trail. "Too bad he didn't last very long. May have been a good ally." Looking up to his right, Yorke noticed one of the rooms, the door still closed, "Roar, think you can open this one?" Before putting a revolver on the frame and giving it a quick knock with the weapon, waiting for any response on the inside. "This? This is child's play, Yorke. I could hack most of the door frames back on the Voyager, no problem." "Oeh-Wje, Har-Bak. Keep us monitored on both sides, me and Roar-Ree are going in, I need you to two stay out here while we scan the room for anything. Got it?" Both nodded and took up positions, opposite sides of Yorke and looked off into the distance. Then a small ping noise was created as the doors began to slide open, revealing a semi-dark room as light flooded into and Roar-Ree hit the lights. "Looks like everything went to hell before they even finished unpacking." The crew peered around inside, seeing nothing but strewn items and the odd black liquid on the walls and items in the room. As they step inside, the door slides shut. Roar-Ree hacks the lock on the second door, which opens to reveal a bathroom in a pristine state. Relieved to see an area without the black liquid, he starts to head inside but is stopped short by Har-Bak, who snags his clothes with his stinger and pulls him back. "The hell?" "The doorway. Look carefully." Roar-Ree did as instructed and saw a thin, oily film stretching across the doorway, almost like someone was trying to blow bubbles. "Is that what I think it is?" "Probably. A trap." "Which means that whoever did this anticipated someone would come along." "Yorke, Mutt, Corpse - over here." Oeh-Wje says, pointing at a desk. "Looks like this was Harre's room. Captain's log." "Let's take a look then," Yorke says. Oeh-Wje presses a couple buttons, and a message pops up on the screen.